Posts Tagged Governing Bodies
Municipal Accountability: a city council’s refusal to account
Posted by Henry McCandless in Accountability of Public Administration Academics, Authorities' Accountabilities, Governance Accountabilities on June 30, 2010
In the August 19 2009 edition of a Victoria BC local newspaper, the Oak Bay News, I had set out the problem of the mushrooming and unfettered deer population in Victoria and what I saw as the Oak Bay municipal council’s responsibility. In that op-ed I stated:
“If Council members say they can do nothing because removal (of the deer) is a provincial matter, they can be expected to meet with other municipal councillors, the deer-housing golf clubs and responsible provincial ministry and wildlife protection officials and come up with an effective action plan within four months. This would be exposed to the public for challenge and would include options such as removal or culling and the reasons for it. Oak Bay Council owes homeowners a public explanation of its intentions and reasons with respect to the deer.”
Seeing no public response from the council members, I wrote on April 16 2010 to each of the seven Oak Bay councillors specifically asking them to publicly explain to Oak Bay residents their action plan to deal with the problem.
My August 2009 op-ed, April 2010 letter to the Councillors and the response are set out below.
The Public Accountability of Governing Boards
Posted by Henry McCandless in Governance Accountabilities on October 10, 2009
Boards of governors are responsible for running their organizations. Yet they are not taught what public accountability means and what the board’s own public accountability is.
A board’s public accountability means the obligation of board members to
- state publicly before the fact what they intend the organization to bring about, for whom, and why they intend it
- what performance standards they have in place for the people running the various key operations critical to solid achievement and gaining public trust
- how they control performance, which means causing to happen that which should and causing not to happen that which shouldn’t
- what came from what they did or failed to do, and how they applied the available learning.
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